


And the Key is Broken Off

by CaptainLordAuditor



Series: Feygeleh [2]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Custom Hawke, Elf Culture & Customs, F/F, Jewish!elves, Sarcastic Hawke, elf blooded!Hawke, elf!Malcolm Hawke, i just really love elves and especially merrill, rogue hawke - Freeform, rogues are actually hedgemages
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-05-09 01:09:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5519879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLordAuditor/pseuds/CaptainLordAuditor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tzipporah Hawke spends most of her life hiding her elvhen heritage and the smallest bit of magic that she has. Meeting Merrill is a breath of fresh air. A series of oneshots about Tzipporah Hawke gently overturning old memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shem

Tzipporah Hawke was born with unfortunate blood in her veins. Her father was an elf apostate who passed on a drop of his blood to Tzipporah, just enough to make her life difficult for her and her brother both.

  
Her brother died when he was four, and privately Tzipporah thought he might have been the lucky one. His magic, though stronger than hers by far, never fully manifested. He would never grow his hair long to hide his slightly-pointed ears or feel his heart pounding in his chest whenever he stepped into a chantry for fear of the Templars' hatred of magic. Khaim Hawke would never make up a name for himself because his real one was too recognisable, too elvhen.

Tzipporah did. She did a lot of other things that Khaim would never do, too.

After Tzipporah and Khaim, Leandra and her husband learned their lesson about names and humans being unable to pronounce them. Being on the run, it seemed a good idea not to attract too much attention. So Mikhael started going by his middle name, Malcolm, and they were more careful about their children.Their next two were Carver and Bethany, and Tzipporah loved her siblings dearly. She told them made up stories about heroes, first of shemlen warriors and then of heroes like them when she realised they could be heroes. She played swords with Carver and dolls with Bethany and when Bethany's magic begane to show, Tzipporah taught her sister what little she could do.

Beth's magic was stronger than Tzipporah's. Tzipporah only had a drop, just enough to be sought by the Templars, but not enough to be of any use in hiding herself or in healing.

So she learned other ways. Beth learned of fire and spirits, Carver of greatswords and axes, and Tzipporah – oh, Tzipporah learned of shadows and subtlety. She learned to be quick and small, and to hide when she needed, to duel three attackers at once two handed and to roll from the way to let Carver take over when there were too many.

And Tzipporah learned other things, too! That drop of magic let her call up smoke, if not fire, and she could obscure herself to slip between her opponents legs and come up behind them. Carver said that wasn't fair, and Papa agreed, but he and Tzipporah both knew the truth: Tzipporah was a mage, if barely. She'd need any advantage in a fight she could get, because she'd be getting in a lot of them. And many of those she wouldn't be able to avoid.

Tzipporah soon learned that magic was not the only thing about her that shemlen struggled with.

When she was six years old Tzipporah tried to make friends in one of the villages where her family stopped. They stopped in places like this one, Redcliffe, often, usually for a few weeks. Papa would heal and work ordinary magic that those in the cities were arrested by the Templars for, and he would be paid in baskets of food or small pouches of coin.

She bounded enthusiastically over to where an older girl watched a small of children about Tzipporah's age. Tzipporah stuck out her hand to one relatively far away from the knot of the group in what she thought was a friendly way. “My name's Tzipporah,” she said to him. “what's yours?”

The boy frowned at her. “Zipra?” he said, “that's a funny name.”

Tzipporah frowned back. “Not Zipra, Tzipporah,” she corrected him.

“Hi, Zipra,” he replied. “I'm Will.” he took her hand and did his seven-year-old best to shake is seriously. “We're playing marbles. You wanna join?”

“It's Tzee-pour-uh,” she repeated, sounding it out slowly this time. “I'll play. Don't have my marbles with me, though.”

“'at's okay,” said Will. “You can borrow mine.”

“Will!” the older girl called and Will turned his head. “Don't go running off everywhere, your pa'll kill me. Bring your friend if y'like, but git back here.”

Will nodded and went to her side, Tzipporah following.

The girl looking after the children squinted at Tzipporah. She had a thin nose and reddish hair. “Ye're the hedgemage's girl, right?”

Tzipporah nodded. “M'name's Tzipporah.”

“I'm Goldanna,” the girl told her. A small boy, around three or so, peered out from behind her skirts. From the shape of his wide eyes and large ears, Tzipporah thought he might be elf-blooded, like her.

Goldanna patted his head. “This is Ali, my brother. James, move over, give Zipora a space.”

Tzipporah slipped in between James and Goldanna, crossing her arms. “Tzipporah!”

It happened like that often. Redcliffe wasn't the only place where shemlen couldn't speak. Nearly everyone did it, shem, durgenlen, and, yes, some elves. Tzipporah soon grew tired of the conversation that always followed her introducing herself.

“Tipera?”

“Nice to meet you, Sipra.”

“Zipperu? What an unusual name.”

And, of course, the inevitible:

“...Can I call you 'Zippy'?”

“Hawke,” though. “Hawke” was nice and easy. One syllable, with none of the sounds that appeared in elvhen but not in Common. So when she was eleven, after five years of sighing and explaining and three years of telling shemlen to call her by her surname when they couldn't pronounce her given one, Tzipporah Hawke gave up entirely. Now, when people asked for her name she gave them only, “Hawke.”

And so she continued. Soon only her family, her siblings and her mother called her “Tzipporah”. Even to her father she was a Hawke, his little fledgling, his eyas. And when her father died, Carver and Mother stopped using “Tzipporah” at the girl's request. To Bethany she would always be “Sister” but she didn't mind, so long as shemlen didn't hear her being called by an elvhen name all day.

She could pass, if she didn't have an elvhen name. Her skin she couldn't lighten, but it wasn't that dark anyway, and shemlen seemed to mind that only a little, not so much as the cat-slit eyes. A simple illusion helped with those. So for five years, she was Hawke and not Tzipporah.

When she met the dwarf who will be her business partner and later her best friend, she was Hawke. To the Grey Warden and his... comrade, to the sailor, the guardswoman, and yes, even the former Tevene slave, she was Hawke.

But when she met a cast-off Dalish Keeper who begged for her pardon and her name, Mikhael Hawke's oldest daughter smiled and said, “Tzipporah.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke and Merrill throw a Purim party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the foods mentioned (except for the alcohols) are real! They're eaten on Purim in various places in our world, and I imagine that while Tzipporah grew up with just hamentaschen, hamen's fingers and folares are both Tevinter foods Orana would make. You can find recipes for them here: http://www.aish.com/h/pur/p/Purim_Foods_around_the_World.html although I haven't had a chance to make them.
> 
> In our world, hamentaschen can be made sweet or savory, but are usually made with pie filling. Since Purim is in the very beginning of the spring, I imagine that they wouldn't have a whole lot of options available to them, having largely used up their stores for the winter. But the Dalish travel, so they might make them from just about anything!
> 
> Set just after "All That Remains".  
> Oh! and there's some background Fenders in this; if that's not your thing feel free to skip this chapter.

As soon as Tzipporah gets home, Merrill bounces out from the kitchen to kiss her on the cheek and drag her back in. The small elf is wearing one of her robes she wears around the estate, its green skirt dusted with flour. Tzipporah follows, unresisting. “Merrill – vhenan, you do realise I'm hopeless at cooking?”

“I know,” Merrill assured her. “You can spoon the filling out. Orana and I are making hamenstashen, hamen's fingers and folares, but we could use some extra hands, and someone to taste them, because I never know if I get the hamenstashen right.”

Hamenstashen! Tzipporah hasn't had hamentashen in years. She's practically forgotten what they taste like. “What kind of hamentashen do you make?” she somehow doubts the Dalish have the same potato and cheese or apple ones she grew up with.

“What kind do you want?”

Tzipporah stares at Merrill's smiling face in awe. “Any - any kind? Whatever I want?” her face is starting to hurt from smiling so broadly. “What kind do the Dalish make? We used to make potato and cheese ones – or pecan or apple if we wanted something sweet – but I want to try what _you_ make.”

“I was thinking we could make peach ones – and prune, strawberry, whatever you like, really. I'm sure we have some potatoes. What kind of cheese would you use?”

“We just used whatever we had – usually sheep or goat cheese.” Tzipporah tore herself away to rush to the icebox and pull out some of the cheeses they had. They had a lot of cheeses, now, all different kinds, and it makes her think of her mother, pulling out cheese in the beginning of the bitter winter or scorching summer and wrapping it with the paper thin layers of dough, frying it in oil til crisp and warm. And oh, Mama's face when she bit into one, smiling, cheese stuck to her teeth as she laughed.

Tzipporah wipes the tears that are blurring her vision and returns to where Merrill is mashing potatoes. “You alright vhenan?”

Tzipporah nods and leans to kiss Merrill's cheek. “Some of this. About – about a third cheese and two thirds potato, I think.”

They mix it, and Orana rolls out the dough and wraps some of it around boiled eggs to make the folares. Merrill cuts the dough into the neatest circles with the rim of a goblet that's never been used because nobody in the house drinks wine, and Tzipporah carefully measures the filling out so it won't overflow – they leave the hamentashen open, so they can tell what they're getting when they eat them. Potato, prune, peach, and pecan. Orana takes some of the leftover pecans and rolls them into phyllo dough for hamen's fingers – Tzipporah's afraid to even touch those without making them fall apart.

“This is an awful lot of food for the – the five of us,” she tells Merrill. Five. She's still getting used to that. She chokes up a bit when she says it.

“Oh. Well...” Merrill looks sheepish. “I thought we might have a bit of a party, really.”

“A party?” Tzipporah swallowed.

“Yes – Varric, and Isabela, Aveline, all the rest. I haven't had a proper purim in years – since before the Blight, really – and I thought you could use a bit of cheering up.” Merrill's face twists in worry. “Just a small thing, really – Anders, Aveline, Varric, Isabela, Fenris. I wrote Bethany, but I don't tihnk she'll be here. I'm sorry. Should I have asked? I should have asked. Or at least told you sooner. oh...I'm sorry vhenan, I can - “

“No! No I'm glad you did. I haven't properly seen them – not really, outside of...well. Since...” Tzipporah tries to swallow the lump in her throat, but it doesn't work. “Since...”

“I know.” Merrill wraps her arms around Tzipporah, who manages to do the same and lean into her lover's hair. “It gets better, after awhile. It never really goes away, but it – it gets easier to think of them. Especially the good parts, I think.”

“Thank you.”

The party, by Merrill's definition, is a success; everyone comes, in costume, even Aveline who declares that they have to have _someone_ to be responsible here. Isabela has somehow stolen a guardsman's armour to come as Aveline, (which is probably why the redhaired woman is glaring at her), Varric somehow ended up in Isabela's corset, and Fenris and Anders have switched their clothes. Tzipporah laughs as she realises that Aveline is the onle one of them not dressed like another member of the group. Instead, Isabela and Merrill seem to have convinced her to go as _The_ Aveline, in fake Orlesian armour and drawn-on vallaslin.

It's nice. Strange, without her siblings there, but nice. They spend several hours feasting and playing cards, to say nothing of the drinking. Fenris brought three bottles of red wine, which are gone through quickly, before Isabela breaks out an Antivan brandy which is much stronger. Anders takes one sip before declaring he's had enough for the night and Justice agrees.

Despite being sober when they're drunk, Anders still manages to lose every other round of cards to Isabela and Varric. It probably has something to do with the elf who's seated himself on Anders' lap and refuses to move distracting him. Tzipporah has Merrill in a similar position, but Merrill isn't nuzzling her and planting kisses on her chin every two seconds.

“I like you in my clothes, Mage.” Fenris is, for once, smiling.

Anders glancees down at Fenris and the clothes he himself is wearing. What is a tunic on Fenris is barely a vest on Anders, not closing and showing at least 3 inches of stomach. “Thanks, love.”

“You should wear it more often,” Fenris continues, licking Anders' jaw.

Isabela and Merrill giggle. Tzipporah bites her lip to keep from doing the same. It bubbles over any way. The image of Anders fighting templars in a tiny vest, tight leggings, and armour that's so small he can barely put it on is too funny to pass up.

“They're so _cute_.” Isabela leans over and says it in a carrying whisper. “I want one.”

Tzipporah laughs, dropping the folares she was eating on Merrill's chest.

“Vhenan!” Merrill picks it up and turns onto her stomach. She holds it up to Tzipporah's lips. “don't waste an e-e-e-e-egg.” she stretches the word out until Tzipporah opens her mouth and bites both the folares and Merrill's fingers. “oh!”

“More?” Tzipporah is starving, even though she's already eaten.

“Only if you let me up, vhenan.”

Tzipporah reluctantly lets her go, making sad noises. Merrill kisses her hard on the mouth and pops up to her feet.

“Get me some, kitten!” Isabela begs.

“Some folares?” Merrill's voice is perky.

“No!” Isabela grins. “Some _men._ ”

They both giggle as Merrill goes to get food; a few minutes later she comes back with food and Varric, and cries “here you go!” as she pulls Varric towards Isabela and sits herself on Tzipporah's lap again.

The rest of the evening continues on in a similar manner; Aveline and Anders make sure nobody decides to go out and fight the criminals that prowl Kirkwall while they're drunk; Tzipporah, Isabela and Anders increasingly lose to Varric; Anders and Varric get into a drunken philosophical discussion of the Purim story; Merrill and Fenris blow raspberries whenever Varric or Anders mentions the bad guy's name, and Tzipporah eats more folares and haman's fingers than she can count.

Every one of them falls asleep there – or possibly Aveline didn't want to deal with getting them safely back to their respective houses. They all wake up in a pile on the floor, wrapped and tangled around each other. Merrill's head is on Tzipporah's chest, and _her_ head is on Varric's leg, who has one arm wrapped around Bianca and the other tangled with Isabela's leg, and somewhere around Tzipporah's feet Anders and Fenris are being very snuggly, despite barely touching each other around the others most of the time.

“Vhenan” Merrill's sitting up and stroking her fingers through Tzipporah's hair.

“Shhh.” She keeps her eyes closed and wraps her arms around Merrill's waist, burying her face in the mage's chest. “Mmm. Love you.”

“I love you too, Tzipporah.”

 


	3. Borrowed Hands and Borrowed Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Us is a funny word.

'Us' was a funny word.

Tzipporah was selfish. She didn't have any delusions about being selfless and kind and generous – maybe once, but not any more. She grabbed onto what was hers and she held onto it like a terrier. And there were a lot of things that were hers now.

Kirkwall was hers. Merrill was hers, and the Dalish were Merrill's, so that meant they were Tzipporah's, too. Bethany, Anders, Fenris, Isabela, Varric, Sebastian – they were all hers. They belonged to Tzipporah, even as they belonged to themselves, just like she belonged to them. That was what Tzipporah hoarded as if she was a dragon. They were her people. Hers. That was what Tzipporah meant when she said _us._

But other people didn't mean that. Other people meant “me and you”, the speaker and the listener, or the speaker and their lover and nobody else. When other people used the word, it felt like an exclusion. _There's Us, and there's You, and you're not Us. You're You._

Shemlen and knife-ears. Templars and mages. Us. You. You're not Us, and if you're not Us you must be against Us, or ,you're not Us, and you'll never be Us because Us is very, very small.

That wasn't what 'us' or 'we' meant to Tzipporah. It was a big word, a welcoming word, that put everything where it should be. With her. If you were part of the 'us' to someone that was 'us' to Tzipporah, then that meant you were 'us' to Tzipporah, too. Tzipporah's 'us' and 'we' were big. They expanded everything. They meant things and people were Tzipporah's.

She thought she could pinpoint the exact moment when the people that were part of Tzipporah's 'us' joined that collective. Well, most of them. Beth had been 'us' since she was born.

Aveline became _us_ when she had first broken down and cried on the way from Lothering, and Tzipporah had wrapped her arms around her and cried, too.

Varric joined the first time Tzipporah had gotten drunk at the Hanged Man and he'd let her have the bed there when she passed out and sent a runner to tell Mother where she was.

Fenris had been 'us' since the time Tzipporah had been brave enough to ask what Tevinter was like and he had trusted her enough to answer.

Anders - the first time Tzipporah and Beth and Merrill had hid at his clinic because the Templars were doing a search through Lowtown.

(they found nothing, because Varric had quietly spread the word of when they were coming, and because their loud armour clanked a league away, and anyone who was still free in Kirkwall wasn't stupid. They knew how to run, how to hide, what would make the Templars arrest their family members and what could get passed off innocently.)

Isabela was harder. She and Tzipporah had both realised that they were 'us' when she had come back with the relic she'd stolen, to return it to the Arishok, but Tzipporah thought that Isabela had been 'us' for much longer than that.

Merrill – well, Tzipporah had been pining and sighing over her for awhile, but it was official that she was a part of Tzipporah's 'us' when she'd gotten back from the Deep Roads and Merrill had squeezed her far more tightly than Tzipporah had thought the elf was capable of and fussed over her and made her the first hot meal Tzipporah had had in weeks (much less elvhen cooking) and was the first person besides Mother who asked where Bethany was.

Tzipporah is selfish. But Tzipporah is also _careful._

So when Tzipporah perches like the bird for which she's named in the shadows of the rafters, a whispered spell keeping her totally concealed, she holds her weapon at the ready, just in case. She's relaxed as she looks down into her cellar, but she can escape at a moment's notice – a whisper of wind, throw the shutters open, and out flies the hawk, wings of steel.

She listens intently, ears twitching at every moment when she thinks Varric's given up his lies. But he doesn't.

In his story, Tzipporah isn't Tzipporah. In his story she is Tzipporah Marian Hawke, the child Leandra always wanted, and she has pale skin and blue eyes, and never knew what it was like to have shemlen step on her, to hold her magic tightly like a secret lover, because Marian never had magic.

In his story, Orsino is dead, and Anders is too, and Merrill fled with her clan. In his story, Marian is charged for treason against the Chantry, but she escapes and is quietly killed by Templars.

Pentaghast watches him intently, not trusting his truth – and this is a mistake, Tzipporah knows. His story is true as any other. Somewhere out there – somewhere, there is a Marian Hawke, and somewhere she was killed by Templars. Pentaghast came for the truth, but she didn't trust Varric. Trust a storyteller, put your entire faith in their telling, in the big things at least, and they will trust you back.

Well. Maybe not Varric.

The Seekers leave, after hours. And after hours more Varric rolls his neck and says, “Don't worry, Zip-zip. I didn't tell her _everything._ Not about us.”

She leaps from her perch to alight on his chair. Tzipporah Hawke, bird of the Amell house, ruffles her feathers and runs her beak through Varric's hair in thanks.

She knows what he means. He didn't give her up. Didn't give _any_ of them up.

A beating of wings, a cry into the air, and a leap from her landing south and downwards, and out to Darktown.

Not ten minutes later, Tzipporah opens her eyes, blinking in the poor eyesight of a half-human, so dismal compared to that of a raptor.She holds her hand out, watching her feathers go, silently thanking them. There's a reason she always keeps her window open.

Tzipporah checks her illusions – it's been three years since the fall, but she's not going anywhere. No more will she hide her cat-slit eyes, cover her ears with long hair. No, she is elf-blooded, and the shemlen will know it. She tilts her head at the reflection in Merrill's eluvian, not activated today. Contemplates the proud arch of her nose and flattens her brow, just a little. No illusions there, either.

Tzipporah smiles at the note from Merrill on the table in the room that doubles as kitchen and dining room, as she hops about on one foot, pulling on her elvhen shoes. Leather, slashed up the loose sides, open toes. Tzipporah ties up her vest, nearly forgets her lyre, and then she goes.

Down the flight of stairs, then through the building built like the city itself (mazelike) and from the kitchen into the front area. She grins at Orana as she passes, already busy on tonight's dinner, and then takes up her seat by the tables.

Tzipporah Hawke is dead. She was executed for treason against the Chantry, enciting mages to riot, smuggling, suspected apostasy and criminally good hair. That was three years ago, in 9:37. It's 9:40, and there's an elf-blooded minstrel sitting in the pub in the Alienage, the Chopping Ear.

Her name is Tzviya Alerion, and she loves her people.

 

 


End file.
